Mr. Jordan is the author of "Brothers, Rivals, Victors: Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, and the Partnership That Drove the Allied Conquest in Europe."

"World War II," wrote Adm. William Leahy, President Roosevelt's wartime chief of staff, "was the best-charted war ever fought. Everybody had charts for everything. We even had a section of the Government devoted solely to telling the rest of the Government how to make charts." The ubiquitous charts—together with such equally mundane cousins as tables, memoranda and staff studies—were the first weapons that America's high command wielded against the three Axis empires. Through them, men were drafted and trained, uniforms and equipment were procured, and Allied strategy took form amid a vast stew of logistical, political and industrial considerations.

The generals who ponder these crucial questions have always been less heralded than those who led through smoke and fire. This makes John J. McLaughlin's study of one of the U.S. Army's key planners all the more welcome....